Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1887-01-17
WFIEETJNG W VA MONDAY MORNING, JANUARY II, 1887.

Westminster catechisms, and wish You
all did, but you may believe in nothing
they contain except the one idea that Christ
came 10 save sinners, and that you are one
of them, and you are instantly rescued. If
yOu can come in on the grand old ship,
would rather have you get aboard, hut If
you can only find piece Of wood as long
as the human body, or piece as wide as
the outspread human arms, and either of
them is a piece of the cross, come in on
that piece. Tens of thousands Of people
are to-day kept out of the Kingdom of
God because they cannot believe every
thing
am talking with man
THOUGHTFUL ABOUT HIS SOUL
who has lately travelled through New Eng
land and passed the night ut AndOver. He
says to me: Il cannot believe that in this
life the destiny is irrevocably fixed; think
there will be another opportunity of re-
pentance after death" say to him: my
brother, what has that to do with you?
Don't you realize that the man who waits
for another chance after death when he has
good chance before death is stark fool?
Had not you better take the plank that is
thrown you now and head for shore rather
than wait for plank that may by invisi-
bic hands be thrown to you after you are
dead? Do rs you please, but as for myself,
with pardon for all my sins offered me now
and all the joys OF time and eternity offered
me now, instantly take them rather than
run the risk of such other chance as wise
men think they can peel off or twist out of
n Scripture passage that has for all the
Christian centuries been interpreted an
other way.
theology, or New Haven theology, or
Andoyer theology" do not ask you on
board either of these great men-of-war,
their port holes filed with the great siege
guns of ecclesiastical battle. But do ask
you to take the one plank of the Gospel
that you do believe in and strike out for
the pearl-struhg beach of Heaven.
Says some other man: ''I would attend
to religion if | was quite sure about the
doctrine of election and free agency, but
that mixes me all up" Those things
used to bother me, but have no more per-
pleXiety about them, for | say to myself:
''If love Christ and live n good, honest,
useful life, l am elected TO be saved; and
if do not love Christ and live bad life, |
will he damned, and all the theological
seninaries of the universe cannot make it
any ditlerent?" tloundered long while
in the sen Of sin and doubt, and it is rs
rough rs the Mediterranean on the four
teenth night when they threw the grain
overheard, but / saw there was mercy for
sinner, and that plank ! took, and
have been warming myself by the bright
fire on the shore for three decades.
While am talking to another man about
his soul he tells me: 81 do not become n
Christian because | do
NOT BELIEVE THERE Is ANY HE'LL
Mt all" All! don't you? Do all the peo-
good morals and bad morals 20 straight to
a happy heaven? Do the holy and the de-
bauched have the same destination? At
midnight in hallway the owner of q
house and burglar meet each other, and
they both fire. and both are wounded, hut
the burglar died in five minutes and the
owner of the house lives week after, will
the burglar be ut the gate of heaven wait
| ing when the house-owner comes in? Will
the debauchee and the libertine 90 right
in among the families OF Heaven? ! Won
der if HerOd is playing Oh the banks of
the River of Life with the children
he massacred Iwonder if Charles Guiteau
and John Wilkes Booth are up there shoot
ing at mark | do not now controvert
it, although | must say that for such a
miserable heaven ] have no admiration.
But the Bible does not say: believe in
pcrdition and he saved" Because all are
saved, according 10 your theory, that
ought not to keep you from loving and
serving Christ. DO not refuse TO come
ashore because all the others, according to
your theory, are going to get ashore. You
may have different theory about chemis-
try, about astronomy, about the atmos-
phere from which Others may adopt, but
you are not therefore hindered from action
Because your theory of light is different
| from Others, do not refuse 10 open your
eyes. Because your theory of air il differ
ent you do not rclnsc to breathe. Because
your theory about the stellar system is
different, you do not refuse TO acknowledge
the North Star. Why should the fact that
your theological theories are different, him
der you from acting upon what you know?
! II you have not o whole ship fashioned in
the theological dry docks TO bring yOu to
wharfage, you at least have q plank:
Some on broken pieces of the ship"
"But !
| DON'T BELIEVE IN REVIyAISn'
Then go to your room, and all alone with
| I'll
and join some church where the thermOm-
cter never gets higher than fifty in the
shade. ''But / do not believe in Bap-
tism ~ Come in without it, and settle
that matter afterward. "But there are 10
many inconsistent Christians ~ Then
come in and show them by good exam
pie how professors ought To act. But |
don't believe in the Old Testament -
Then come in on the New. But | don't
like the Book Of Romans ~ Then come
in on Matthew or Luke. Refusing to
come to Christ, whom you admit 10 be the
Saviour Of the lost, hec;tuse yuu cannot ad-
nit other things, you are like man out
there in that Mediterranean tempest and
tossed in the Melita breakers, refusing 10
come ashore until he can mend the pieces
of the broken ship. ! hear him say ~
won't 60 in on any of these planks until /
know in what part Of the ship they be-
long When | can get the windlass in the
right place, and the sails set, and that
keel-piece where it belongs, and that floor
timber right, and these ropes untangled, ]
will 20 ashore. | am an old sailor and
know all about ships for forty years, and ~
soon as eau get tile vessel atoat in good
shane ! will come in." A man drifting
by on a piece Of wood overhears him and
says: You will drown before you get that
ship reconstructed. Better do as ! am
doing. know nothing about ships, and
never saw one before came on haard thiE,
and cannot swim stroke, but am
going ashore on this shiyered timber. :"
The man IN the ofling while trying 10 mend
his ship goes down. The man who trusted
to the plank is saved. o, my brother, let
your smashed-up system Of theology go 70
the bottom while you enme in On splin-
tered spar! Some on broken pieces Of the
ship.H
You may get all
YOUR DIFFICULTIES sErTLEn
as Garibaldi, the magnetic italian, got bis